Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Bacon Truck

I couldn’t believe it took as long as it did for it to exist. You would have thought it was already here. But it wasn’t. Now with the food truck craze in full swing, some genius finally decided to create a bacon truck.

For the uninitiated let me elaborate, there is a fantastic gourmet food truck revolution currently happening that rivals any kind of movement the Tea Partiers could dream up. These specialized roach coaches (although that moniker really does them a great disservice) drive around cities, serving up high quality food. Many of them are concept driven, which is why in LA we have the Grilled Cheese Truck, the breakfast truck, ice cream sandwich truck, Korean BBQ taco truck, cheesesteaks… You get the idea.

Not only is the food from these trucks really good, but there is an extra element of fun in the experience due to the hunt. These are mobile restaurants, which means you have to work for your grub by catching them. The trucks drive around the city, posting their locations via Twitter. They don’t have a regular schedule, so they could pretty much be anywhere at any time. Since I don’t have the luxury of being able to chase down these trucks, my only bet to eat at them is if they orbit close to my home or office. Like the way that every once in a while you win in Vegas, I’ve been lucky a few times able to unexpectedly score some Korean tacos on my way home from work.

A few days ago, I heard the most amazing news—a new truck, the bacon truck. It’s a brilliant idea and of course I was automatically intrigued. The truck, calling itself Lardon, hadn’t even officially opened yet. They were in their “soft open” phase and had only been making one stop a day to work out the kinks before their big launch. I decided to make it my mission to eat from the bacon truck.

The gods of pork were smiling on me because two days after hearing about the truck, I learned they would be close to my place of business. I jetted through the office halls and accosted a few colleagues that I knew might be interested in such an adventure. With my car loaded up, we took to the streets. Considering that I had talked others into spending their lunch hour tracking down a truck filled with bacon, I began worrying that it might not be there like some cruel practical joke. But my fears were rapidly allayed because there was the truck sitting quietly around a corner with no line to stand in the way of us and our bacon.

As promised, everything on the menu revolves around bacon—from the BLT to the desserts. They also serve breakfast all day. Unfortunately, they were out of the chicken wings coated in bacon hot sauce with a side of bacon bleu cheese dressing, so I settled on a French toast brioche sandwich with bacon crumbles and bourbon bacon syrup. My companions went for their fancy BLT and their simple, but awesome bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. But my favorite thing about their menu has to be the Bacone. It’s a paper cone filled with four strips of various kinds of bacon that change periodically. That day, they were serving peppered bacon, maple bacon and bacon from a wild boar (which was meat, a little gamey and totally delicious). I mentioned dessert right? Try a browning topped with Nutella and bacon. (Salty and sweet was great even before sliced bread.)

My co-workers and I all felt a bit sluggish that afternoon, but we agreed that it was worth it. The bacon truck is not a place you’d want to eat at every day. But I’m glad that the fates brought us together so that I, fan of bacony goodness, could be amongst their first customers. I’m totally going to hunt them down again to get my bac-on.*